Higher and Higher
by DetectiveMcGeek
Summary: Jane and Maura meet in odd circumstances and realize, as they grow up, that they will always somehow find each other.


"You do it."

"Hell no, you do it."

"No, you do it!"

Jane had enough.

"God! If you two are such babies I'll do it," she shouted at her youngest brother and their friend, James. She shushed the two boys to quiet them down. They were hiding behind a tree in the park, watching people go by. They were on the lookout for something, but it had to be exactly in the right place, and they had to plan their actions very precisely. Their target this time, a young blonde girl, probably about Jane's age, about fourteen or fifteen, maybe a year or two older, was sitting on a bench by a path. They could see her wallet perfectly from where they were sitting, peaking out over the top of those stupid handbags that have an open top.

_If I ever got a purse, I wouldn't just let it hang open like that. Stupid. _

The three of them had been dared by the Talluci kids down their street to steal a wallet, any wallet, from anyone, by the end of the weekend. Right now, it was Sunday, five o'clock, almost time for dinner and their parents would tear them a new one if they were late for the third night in a row.

The blonde girl was reading, her head bent down with the dirty blonde curls falling down, hiding some of her face. Jane could just make out the edge of her features, noticing how the girl would subconsciously lick her lips after she turned a page. She was wearing a pastel pink blouse with a lace trim on the puff-capped sleeves. It was tucked neatly into a mint green skirt that barely brushed her knees while she sat. She was leaning against the back of the bench and her ankles were crossed neatly, like she was royalty.

"She's getting up, she's getting up!" Frankie excitedly whispered next to her, swatting Jane in the arm several times.

"I know, shh!" Jane said, watching as the girl looped the handles of the purse into the crook of her bent elbow and carried the book next to her side. "Remember the plan. Don't chicken out, I'm doing the hard part."

She rolled her eyes and walked quickly out from the back of the tree, following about twenty feet behind the girl. The girl's steps were light and moderate, and Jane sped up to walk as quickly and quietly as possible behind her. She caught up and tapped the girl lightly on the shoulder.

She stopped and turned around and Jane was momentarily taken aback. This girl had some really striking features and for a second, she couldn't find words. The girl had wide, wise-looking golden-green-brown eyes that seemed to switch between the colors. Her nose was pointed, sharp, and strong, and her face as a whole had angles that all seemed to fit gracefully together.

"Uh, hi," Jane said. _Smooth, genius. _Closer together, Jane seemed to be at least three inches taller than the girl.

"Hello," the girl said, a small smile turning the corners of her lips upward.

"I was just, uh, wondering what you were reading?" Jane asked the first thing that came to her mind. She saw James come out from behind the tree, or rather stumble out, obviously been pushed by Frankie who was also too chicken to do that too. Jane just barely restrained herself from rolling her eyes.

"Oh, it's uh," the girl stumbled over her words for a bit. She seemed not to want to tell Jane. "It's the," she held up the book horizontally between her and Jane. "It's a collection of Shakespeare's comedies."

Jane looked down to the book, a boring looking hardcover with a solid maroon color, and back up to the girl's face. She looked like she wanted to scurry quickly in the other direction.

"Oh, well, that's cool. I read Shakespeare once in school, Twelfth Night, I think," Jane said, trying to keep the girl's brows from coming further together.

It seemed to work because her face brightened immediately.

"Oh that's a lovely one! I think it's my favorite. I was just finishing A Midsummer Night's Dream and, though I've heard multiple people tell me that's their favorite, I still believe Twelfth Night is mine."

"Right," Jane said, starting to get the feeling she was gonna get real lost real soon. "His sense of humor is spot on in that one."

To Jane's surprise, the girl chuckled a little at that. She turned her head to the side and Jane and James froze, both watching if the girl was going to be able to see over her shoulder and see James less than five feet away looking very suspicious.

The girl looked back at Jane and the small smile faded as she took in Jane's expression. Jane took a second to wipe it off her face, but the girl had already started speaking.

"Well, I best be getting home," she said, aiming to trail off at the end of the sentence, not knowing where to pause or what to say in an interaction like this, but before she had the chance, Jane grabbed both her shoulders and pulled the two of them together and kissed her full on the mouth.

It took Jane four seconds to connect their lips, look over the girl's shoulder, see James slip out the dark blue wallet, and run away in the other direction.

Jane separated them and the girl looked frozen in place. Her eyes were wide as saucers and her neither of them noticed that her book had fallen from her hands down onto the pavement of the sidewalk. Her hands were up in the air as if posed to grab Jane's arms and push her away. Jane looked down at the book and bent over quickly to pick it up. She handed it back to the girl without a word, smiled politely, and patted her shoulder before breaking out into a run after James.

Maura Isles stood shocked, frozen, for what seemed like an hour but was only less than a minute. She looked around behind her, her heart pounding, her forehead slightly damp from perspiration. There was no sign of the girl anywhere, in any direction. She looked down at the book she was gripping with a white-knuckle grip and shook her head. Heart still beating fast, she walked up the path toward her home.


End file.
